UK - Legal highs 'becoming bigger issue than illegal drugs'

[edgarshade]

BBC News

21 June 2011 Last updated at 06:45

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13846006

Legal highs are becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs, with many young people wrongly believing they are safe, a drugs worker claims. Alan Andrews, an ex-heroin addict who runs a Llanelli-based drug intervention centre, said some legal drugs were stronger than illegal counterparts. He told BBC Wales' Week In Week Out that legal did not mean safe. The UK government plans to bring in temporary banning orders for legal highs to be tested. The programme has investigated the issue of legal highs, more than a year after the drug mephedrone, or meow meow, was banned.Undercover recording has found shops breaking the law by selling some of these drugs for human consumption.

Mr Andrews, managing director of Chooselife, said: "It's becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs because... the message 'legal' means safe, which it's not."And... some of them are stronger, more potent than the illegal drugs and it's quite scary. "There's a generation of young people who are being sold a lie that legal means safe."

Secretly recorded Week In Week Out footage shows a 17-year-old girl being sold a drug called salvia. She is also sold equipment and shown how to use it to smoke the drug. Salvia, derived from a Mexican plant, is legal to possess but it is against the law to sell it for human consumption. A toxicologist and former member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs said the drugs laws needed to be reviewed. John Ramsey says salvia has not been banned because the fact it is so potent means very few people take it more than once.

Unprecedented pace

"There has been a lot of talk about whether things are appropriately classified and I think the development of these new compounds at the rate they're being developed probably warrants a second look at how we control all drugs," he said.Legal highs are not new but there are more of them and there are concerns they are getting more potent.Last month the monitoring centre which records drug use across Europe said new highs were appearing at an "unprecedented" pace.Some 41 new substances emerged in 2010, 16 of which were first reported in the UK. The most high profile has been mephedrone which has been linked to a number of young people's deaths.

'Worrying trend'

It was banned in April last year but the programme has found it is still being used in Wales, where there have been 100 arrests since the ban.The UK government is planning to bring in temporary banning orders, to allow time for legal highs to be tested. The Home Office said: "So-called legal highs can be extremely dangerous and anyone taking them is playing Russian roulette with their health. "We are building one of the most robust systems in the world to tackle this worrying trend."

 

[edgarshade]

Pure propaganda. The article presents prohibition as being the only solution and does not quote anyone who would have an alternative viewpoint on the matter. This article probably doesn't comply with the BBCs journalistic guidelines on neutrality and coverage of controversial subjects.

 

[Solide]

I guess they really want kids to know that legal doesn't mean it's safe After all it's a major side-effect caused by years official drug-policy:

"Illegal drugs are bad, you shouldn't take them. There's a reason they're illegal and it's because they are bad. Even soft drugs like cannabis are bad. If they weren't bad, why else would they be illegal?"

I'm pretty sure that's the basic message everyone has gotten for the last 50 years or so. Enter legal highs (especially mephedrone):

Check it out: it's a drug and it's not illegal. Now we're not saying that's it good for you or anything, but remember what they were telling you about all those illegal drugs being bad? Yeah that's what I thought. So 2 grams of cheap and legal drugs then? Remember, it's actually not for human consumption *wink wink*

It's also kind of sad (tho not unexpected) to see that the flood of articles, arguiing about whether the legal status of drugs mattered, didn't change anything. Their clumsy catch-all "illegal drugs are bad! Ban ban ban!" approach has led to this situation and instead of learning from it they're just doing the exact same thing again.

 

[edgarshade]

Here's the video to go with the article...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13853981

Agree 100% with what you are saying. I just wish the BBC would question drugs propaganda as rigorously as they question politicians on economic policy. Right now they just act as a dumb mouthpiece for whatever government of the day.

 

[dimensiontripping]

Solide - well said. this seems to be purely about our conceptual classification of substance and the LANGUAGE we use to understand it. everything has become a binary. yes/no, good/bad, illegal/legal. when really there is just so much more to it then its bad for you so it should be illegal OR its good for you so it should legal. What a waste of human intellect if you think about it. these people are at the top of the food chain regarding public and private policy and they do a damn fine job of looking like the biggest fucking fools. PHD? Masters Degree? regardless, some serious common sense is lost over drug policy.

They say it right here: "There's a generation of young people who are being sold a lie that legal means safe."

its also a lie that what is illegal is so dangerous for us that it is illegal for us to experience the feeling of it. they trip up constantly. I don't understand where the hell the public resilience is? you dont have to take drugs to see that this shit is fucked up.

 

[360-12]

The UK government is planning to bring in temporary banning orders, to allow time for legal highs to be tested. The Home Office said: "So-called legal highs can be extremely dangerous and anyone taking them is playing Russian roulette with their health. "We are building one of the most robust systems in the world to tackle this worrying trend."

We all know this will simply mean a quasi-permanent ban, where all new substances are left in an "awaiting testing" limbo. The govt clearly have no intention of testing anything - it takes years for anything to get through clinical trial.

If they actually gave a shit about the health and safety of the population, they'd realise a significant percentage of the populace enjoy the novelty of different psychoactive experiences and this will always be the case - so they should be responsible enough to provide us with as "safe", legal and effective substances and leave us to get on with it.